Making Tax Digital for Income Tax launches in April 2026 for sole traders and landlords earning above £50,000. If you claim business mileage, every journey you record must sit inside a digital chain that stretches from your car to HMRC’s servers — with no manual re-keying along the way. That chain starts with the app on your phone.
This guide explains what MTD demands from mileage software, how the digital links rule affects you, and why getting the right tool in place now saves trouble later.
What MTD Requires from Your Software
HMRC does not prescribe a single product. Instead, it sets three functional requirements that any MTD-compatible mileage tracking solution must satisfy.
Digital records. Every business journey must be stored electronically. The record needs a date, start and end location, distance, and business purpose. Paper logbooks no longer count once you are within scope of MTD. Records must be contemporaneous — created at or near the time of travel, not reconstructed weeks later from memory.
Digital links. Once a record exists in digital form, every onward transfer of that data must also be digital. Copying a mileage total from an app and typing it into accounting software breaks the chain. Permitted transfers include CSV or spreadsheet imports, API connections, and file exports that feed directly into your accounting package. The critical point is that the data must flow without manual re-entry or copy-and-paste.
Quarterly submission capability. Your mileage data ultimately forms part of the expenses total submitted to HMRC each quarter. The submission itself goes through MTD-compatible accounting or bridging software. Your mileage app does not submit directly to HMRC, but it must produce an export that slots into that submission workflow without breaking the digital link.
What a Mileage App Needs to Qualify
Not every GPS tracker on the market meets these standards. An app that is genuinely MTD-compatible should offer the following:
- Automatic GPS logging — records each journey as it happens, satisfying the contemporaneous-record requirement
- Business and personal categorisation — lets you tag trips so only qualifying business miles feed into your claim
- Journey-level detail — captures date, route, distance, and purpose for every single trip
- Digital export — produces CSV, PDF, or a direct integration that maintains the digital link to your accounting software
- Running mileage total — shows cumulative business miles so you know when you cross the 10,000-mile threshold where the HMRC rate drops from 45p to 25p
- Purpose notes — a quick field to record why you made each journey, which HMRC expects to see if they review your records
If an app lacks any of these, you risk a gap in your digital chain or an incomplete audit trail.
How Mileage Feeds into Your Quarterly MTD Submission
Under MTD for Income Tax, you submit a summary of income and expenses to HMRC four times a year. The deadlines fall on 7 August, 7 November, 7 February, and 7 May. After the final quarter, a year-end Final Declaration is due by 31 January.
Your vehicle expense for each quarter is calculated as business miles multiplied by the HMRC approved mileage rate. You do not send individual trip records to HMRC with each quarterly update. Instead, you submit the total expense figure, and keep the underlying trip-level records available for inspection.
The workflow looks like this:
- Your mileage app records every journey throughout the quarter
- At the quarter end, you export your business miles total
- Multiply by the HMRC rate (45p for the first 10,000 miles, 25p thereafter) to get the vehicle expense
- Import or digitally transfer that figure into your MTD-compatible accounting software
- Submit the quarterly update to HMRC through that software
The digital link must remain intact at every step. If you export a CSV from your mileage app and import it into your accounting package, that counts. If you read a number off the screen and type it in manually, it does not.
Can You Still Use a Spreadsheet?
Spreadsheets remain technically compliant, but only if paired with bridging software that maintains the digital link to HMRC. You cannot submit from a spreadsheet alone.
Practical drawbacks make spreadsheets risky for mileage:
- You must remember to log every single journey manually
- No automatic GPS capture means distances are estimated, not measured
- Contemporaneous recording is hard to prove when entries can be backdated
- Bridging software adds another cost and another point of failure
For most self-employed drivers, a dedicated mileage app is more reliable, less effort, and produces stronger evidence if HMRC asks questions. The HMRC mileage log template guide covers what fields you need if you do go the spreadsheet route.
How Tripbook Supports MTD Compliance
Tripbook records every journey automatically using GPS the moment you start driving. Each trip captures the date, start and end location, distance, and lets you add a business purpose note — all the fields HMRC requires under MTD.
You categorise each trip as business or personal with a single swipe. At the end of a quarter, Tripbook generates a complete mileage report ready for export. The export includes every journey in detail, giving you both the summary figure for your quarterly submission and the granular records HMRC may request during a compliance check.
Because the data is captured automatically and exported digitally, the chain from journey to submission stays intact. There is no manual re-keying, no copy-and-paste, and no risk of forgetting a trip.
Download Tripbook from the App Store and start building your MTD-ready mileage log today.
Who Needs MTD Compliance and When
MTD for Income Tax is rolling out in phases based on qualifying income from self-employment and property:
| Tax year | Income threshold | Action required |
|---|---|---|
| 2026/27 | Above £50,000 | Digital records and quarterly submissions mandatory |
| 2027/28 | Above £30,000 | Brought into scope |
| 2028/29 | Above £20,000 | Brought into scope |
Eligibility is determined using income reported on your Self Assessment return two years prior (the CY-2 rule). For the April 2026 start, HMRC will look at your 2024/25 tax year figures.
During the first year (2026/27), HMRC is operating a soft-landing period. Penalty points for late quarterly submissions will not convert into financial fines. From 2027/28 onward, the full points-based penalty system applies — each missed deadline earns a point, and reaching four points triggers a £200 fine per subsequent late submission.
Even if you sit below the current threshold, accurate mileage records remain an HMRC requirement for anyone claiming business miles on their Self Assessment. Starting with a proper tracking app now means you are ready when your threshold arrives — and your current claims are better evidenced in the meantime.
For a deeper look at the broader MTD landscape, see our guide to Making Tax Digital and mileage tracking. If you want to understand the core record-keeping rules that apply whether or not you are in MTD scope, read business mileage record keeping for HMRC. And for the latest on approved rates, check our breakdown of the HMRC mileage rate for 2026.
